Saturday, August 25, 2007

Swish!

Please excuse the absence yesterday, but I was having quite a treat of a day and didn't get a chance....we did go bike riding again, fortunately for me, not quite so far and it is raining today so I am probably off the hook....

The treat part though....it is a friend's 40th birthday today, and her husband decided to do something a little special, and gain lots of good husband points as well....he had a whole surprise evening set out for her, and I was part of the package. A bunch of her friends met at one house where a giant freaking limosine picked us up...I'd never been in a limo before so that was kind of cool, and then we went over to her house and got her. She was a little surprised.

We then got her in and went off to theArt Gallery of Ontario , which had a bunch of small displays, some of them quite spectaular. They had a best of from the Victoria and Albert museum in London, all mideival and renaissance items, including the relequary from Thomas Aquinas' left overs so to speak, then they had a body of work fromChuck Close who is an amazing photographer who then worked with weavers to transfer his gigantic portraits, which are spectacular in and of themselvs, into tapestries...on jacard looms. Each work took over 30 months to create, and they are amazing. There was also a display of contemporary Indian (East) art work, which was rather dispairing, and a display of traditional pieces from the Tsimshan people in British Columbia. Predicatably they were taken by Europeans ages ago, and have recently been purchased by a body of Canadian investors, but have not been returned to the people to whom they probably should belong...they were amazing works.

After this we got into a cab and hustled off to Jump, a fancy restaurant in TO for a very nice dinner, we had Tuna Tartar, and truffle gnocci, steak, seafood, a molten chocolate cake, seared bluefin tuna...all very very good, although the gnocci were a bit salty and the bathrooms squalid, even after I mentioned the fact to the staff, so be warned. After this delight we went on to a really nice hotel in downtown TO for a sleepover! How good is that? I haven't had a sleep-over in a long time. We got up this morning, had a fancy breakfast and all went on our ways.

It was pretty fantastic, and really nice to see my bud for such a long time. She lives out of town and when we get together with our kids it is at best a challenge to have more than a fragmentary conversation. Her kids are younger, and we are getting there, but it is still tough.

It was also neat because some of her friends who I have met over the years were there as well, and I got to know them better than I had before. A really delightful group.

The latest

Who???

A Canadian sailor aground in Catalonia, Spain. We used to live in Toronto, then we got on our boat and sailed down to the Bahamas where we spent most of our time for three years and now we are here in Spain, outside of Barcelona, learning the languages, eating and doing our thing.
Yup, we still miss the boat but life is good.